I’m listening to the wonderfully-read audiobook version that’s available for a mere $6.00.

It’s interesting to note the differences between the book and the movie since I never read the book growing up.

I don’t read much fiction and haven’t read a mystery in… who knows how long. I picked this one up because it used Cao Dai as a major drive behind the plot.

The book was fine, I guess. Nothing special. The writing was decent, the ending made sense… about the only part that drove me nuts was the chapter where the lead character jumped on stage with a rock band and the chase that ensued. It felt really, really awkward and out of place, like it belonged in a crappy Hollywood blockbuster.

I also got annoyed at how the main character would always sneak into random places, like through the backdoor of a house to hide from someone, and the people inside the house would never think it odd that a random person (who they always assumed was someone else) was standing there. Contrived.

All-in-all, an alright book, but I doubt I’ll be reading any others in the series.

Though the book is ten years old, it’s an excellent look at the infamous “mole people,” homeless that set up house underground, levels and levels under New York’s subway. Even the most open-minded of us tend to look at these people as freaks, but Toth reminds us of the human element behind even the most hard-to-grasp story.

Very well written, particularly for such a (at the time) young writer.

This graphic novel collects comics drawn between 1989 and 2004 about the author’s stint as a Mosquito Abatement Man in Illinois and Colorado. It’s a quirky topic, but the end result is insightful, particularly where he decided to leave the job he’s done for five years.

A very quick, but engrossing, read.

This 1992 book was mentioned in a recent Washington Post article on the resurgence of front porches (were they ever really “gone”?). The cover’s nice and, after all, how could a book about front porches be bad?

It is.

The pictures are bland, many faux-sepia toned, and the “content” consists of an awful foreword and a bunch of quotes from other books that somehow—sometimes only very loosely—relate to porches. If it was written today, I would have assumed someone Googled “porch quotes” and just used the result to cut-and-paste in this book.

A total waste of time.

Great book…

A fun, easy read that reminds me that it’s OK to be an obsessive collector, no matter how strange it is when you think about it objectively.

An old man’s sexual urges go into hyperdrive after his stroke. The object of his lust is his daughter-in-law. While he can’t very well restrain his lust, you can’t help but feel he’s more than just a dirty, old man.

Tanizaki first caught my attention with In Praise of Shadows. This is my first experience with his fiction and I’m definitely encouraged to explore his work more deeply.

465 pages of truly essential reading for anyone that considers themselves a “head.” Chang does a phenomenal job of juxtaposing hip-hop and history, giving the music a context. My only complaint: it ends somewhat abruptly at the 2000 DNC protests. It’s a good ending, mind you, but I felt like it snuck up on me.

Great stuff and I look forward to seeing a follow-up in another 15 years.

The first 200 pages cover hip-hop through 1982. I don’t think any other book has given the early days (which began well before “Rapper’s Delight”) that much space.

Great, in that it gives true historical and cultural context to the movement and albums that have shaped hip-hop over the last 30+ years.

Reading this collection of issues of Doris is getting an insight into someone seemingly very different from myself, yet the emotions and thoughts are very similar. Important things become unimportant and unimportant things take on an importance greater than they initially seem to deserve. Great stuff and it’s wonderful to see it’s still being produced, all these years later.